Gear Head Tuesday – Fifty Four Willys

Gear Head

Hat Tip_2

A big tip of the hat to “Pappy” for this.

I neglected to put this in last week’s post about the Aero-Willys, but I now realize it deserves a post of its own. Enjoy!

1954 Willys Aero Eagle

Fifty Four Willys

It was my Willys Aero
in that sagging wood garage.
A reminder of a better time,
like a withered prom corsage.

Its faded skin was green and white
and covered up with dust.
It sat on flat and rotting tires,
its nose cone flecked with rust.

I bought four Mohawk recaps,
it lifted from the ground.
I added battery, points, and plugs
and the engine came around.

I had the outside painted black.
New interior, red and white.
Colored paper covered the dome light,
to enhance the mood at night.

It had two hump like tail fins
like its cousin Henry J.
And was followed by a light blue smoke
as the Casite burned away.

Poem by Dennis Price ©

Henry J - R

Think about this:

In the early to mid 1950s, you could drive a Kaiser or Willys car or a Jeep that was built with Kaiser steel on a road in the West paved with Kaiser concrete protected with guard rails made of Kaiser aluminum. If you served in the military in World War II or Korea, you may have been on a Kaiser-built ship or used provisions and weapons and worn clothes brought to your post on a Kaiser-built ship. When you were sick, you may have gone to a Kaiser hospital and gotten your prescription filled at a Kaiser pharmacy. Little known today, Henry J. Kaiser’s industrial empire helped shape modern America.  While of the industrial side of the Kaiser empire, only Kaiser Engineers remains today, but Henry J. Kaiser’ legacy lives on in the Kaiser-Permanente system of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.

The Kaiser-Frazer – Willys – Darrin Series:

The Orphan Kaiser-Frazer

The End of the Frazer

Kaiser’s Ill-fated Henry J

The Kaiser-Darrin

Designer Dutch Darrin

The Willys Aero

Henry J. Kaiser – Larger Than Life

–00OO00–

Auto Art

Hat tip to “B-Squared” for these.

Auto_Art

1938 DeSoto

Auto Art - '49 Caddy

1949 Cadillac

Ferrari camshaft drive

Dual overhead camshaft drive on a Ferrari V-12

Maserati

Maserati

2 Comments

Add yours →

  1. Jack Darnell 19/07/2016 — 05:04

    Neat entry. I remember This willys, Like the poem. Some beautiful ART that is for sure. Most of us forget Kaiser except for the medical end!
    Thanks for the beauty!

    Like

  2. Thanks Paul, I appreciate the kudos. Lots of folks still remember that little car. Pappy

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: